Bridge and Exercises

Yesterday afternoon was bridge once again. We found that last Tuesday's results were on the board. We came second bottom (still at least some played worse than us!) I really enjoyed the afternoon. I keep making the odd mistake in filling in my scorecard, so I have to score it out and the card looks messy. However, I saw one of the players using a pen with a built in eraser.

So, what did I do?

Tracked them down on the internet and ordered them.

Thought I had ordered two, but found it was two boxes of 12.

That should keep me going for a while.

I had quite an early night last night and wakened in the mmiddle of the night for the usual trip to the loo (too much information). Judging from the quality of the light I thought it must be around 4 am. Unfortunately the clock showed 7.10. I crawled back into my lovely warm bed, but after about 15 minutes I forced myself to get up.

I got myself to the exercise class and did not feel too great while on the Bicycle. The physio came and asked me how I was feeling and I had to confess it was not too good. She said I was looking white and told me to sit down and have a drink of water then sent me home.

I think I mentioned that I felt a bit faint last week when I stood up with the afternoon cup of tea group and this felt much the same.

I came home and made myself a good cooked breakfast and now I feel better.

I find it difficult to make breakfast first thing on any day, but I can see I absolutely must before I go to the exercise class

The Dreaded Washing

Yesterday after Church I managed to get 2 loads of washing done and out of the way. I know I talk about this beyond the point of boredom, but it is such a bore for me too as I have quite a long (well -ish) walk to the laundry room and each time you hope against hope that there will be a machine free. I was in luck and the place was empty, not one machine in use. So on with the first load and the second load in a bag in front of the machine to show that it was the next wash to go in there. You are not allowed to use more than one machine at a time (and I can see the point of this, but by the time the first wash was transferred to the tumble dryer there was still nobody there.

Ah well I got it all finished in time for lunch at 2 pm.

I have been trying to practise my exercises for the class on Tuesdays but I am finding it difficult as I get sore and tired....

R.I.P.

I have just heard that Paul Newman has died.

A true star and a good actor (rare these days).

He will be missed.

Sorry to mention it, but....

.... Christmas. I know it is far too soon but I try to spread the cost and so, having dealt with birthdays, yesterday I moved on to Christmas. Not quite as bad as it seems as I was trying to look out cards and money for all those lovely people who come around near Christmas and to whom I make a small monetary gift. I have yesterday sorted out my lovely cleaners, but need more change of large notes to find for the paper boy and the milkman. I bet I have forgotten someone..... *

I have also stearted reading Heartland by Stuart Legg; I think I am gong to find it particularly interesting after reading the first two of a trilogy by Conn Igguldson of Genghis Kahn as it covers much the same geographical area.

* oops, so far, the Postman

Upcoming Birthdays

I see that I have not posted anything since Wednesday, so, just in case anybody out there was concerned about the state of my health - mo need for concern. Somewhat boringly, on Thursday my two lovely cleaners came and left everything sparkling once more. After that I got stuck in to The Times which keeps my attention much longer than The Scotsman did and then started to organise things for the soon to happen birthdays of three grandchildren and one son of niece.

Get out of Jail Free Card

... otherwise known as the disabled blue badge cars.

I was very tired yesterday after the physiotherapy, so I did not feel at my best at the bridge club. I hate dozing off in my chair as I seem unable to get going again, but I now think I should go to bed for an hour or two, then get up, shower and do my hair before changing to go out.

Anyway I shall be interested to see how we did (mixed fortunes I expect, but not dire.)

Today I got a phone call from G to say I had left my disability card in her car, so she popped by to give it to me, and not only that she threaded a needle for me so I could mend a seam in my pyjamas where the stitching had come apart.

After that I made leek and potato soup, so it has been quite a busy day. (See recipe in Recipes Blog)

Bridge Club

Yesterday I went to the Bridge Club with my partner (G.) She came and collected me to take me there and on the way I had a bit of a chat with her, suggesting that she laugh rather than get upset when S. got at her. I think she took this on board to some extent.

At least we got through the first three boards fine, and when we moved to the next table S. started to say something and I said that she should get at me rather than G. as I had made something of a horlicks with my bidding of one hand at the previous table.

Another thing that helped G. was that it became increasingly apparent that she was giving her partner a very difficult time of it. I kept catching her partner's eye and gave her sympathetic smiles - I could see that she was getting rather fed up. At least that helped G to realise that it was nothing personal.

We had good points through the evening and I ended up playing most of the time (at least it seemed like that. I made a couple of boo boos but otherwise it went well. I now realise that my play is better than my bidding, so I need to put more work in there.

Physioterrorists again

I came home yesterday to a telephone message to say that, after discussing the case with her boss, they reluctantly have to decline the service because of the level of support we have here.

This morning I went to the physiotherapy exercise class; boys are they working me hard - I can hardly move.

Came home to find the organic veg box waiting - a mixture of potatoes, some white (Bard) and some red (Robinta), lovely carrots (Miami) with their feathery tops on, several leeks, 3 beetroot and broccoli.

The fruit was 2 bananas, 3 oranges, 3 apples and 1 kiwi fruit. Now the nursery are talking about a new development - an addition of a 'goodie' bag - this would be in addition to the normal net and they would let us know what would be in the next goodie bag, with items such as peppers, mushrooms, beansprouts, garlic, lemon, ginger, butternut squash and avocado. They are also talking about more variety of fruit, the disadvantage being the packaging so they suggest small boxes which we would leave out for the driver like the vegetable net.

Now, I had some potatoes left over from last time so I have made a potato salad with those ones. Then I had to cope with a delivery from T****.

I did manage to get something to eat and a tall glass of fresh orange and tonic.

And now I have to get ready to go to the Bridge Club.

Can I stay awake??

More Falls Response - and Bridge

I came back from bridge to a very welcome cup of tea.

I found this afternoon quite difficult; my partner is very easily upset, and, although she started off fine, she soon became obviously upset. I joked away and said to
S that she obviously had her scatter gun as she was hitting everyone.

As my partner becomes upset I try to keep her going and to lighten her mood. The result is that I find I am not playing as well as I should. The real crunch comes when she complains about my bidding or play. I might have managed better if I were not supporting her.

Aaaargh!

TBSITW and Falls Response

I may not have mentioned it, but recently "Mammouth" - the planter in the shape of a wooly mammoth looked very ill and had to go into 'hospital' with TBSITW; it turned out that the plant holder bit was lined with polythene and so it started to fill up with water causing the azaleas to rot.

She has now lined it with moss from a near by forest and filled it with pansies. It is good to see it looking in better health. Miss Pig - representing my sister - is very healthy; the fuschia is still flowering and the ivy for hair is getting longer.

We managed a good chat before she had to leave for a visit to the dentist.

Shortly after she left a lady from the County Falls Response Team came to assess me for a pendant alarm. We had a good chat and talked about all the aspects of my falls. She is going to report back and let me know what the decision is, but doesn't hold out much hope because of the level of pull cord alarms in the flat.

Church, Sunday Times, Arctic Chill

Today is a lovely early autumn day, perfect for that walk to Church from the gates. The service today was taken by the Associate Minister as the Minister was visiting the Sunday School.

After I finish the Sunday Times I shall continue with Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason. This is a roman policier set in Iceland by a native of Iceland and translated into English (among many translations.)

I really enjoy all these different romans policiers from many countries. You get so much more that the detective story; you get the different heroes, the different relationships among the police teams, but most of all the feel for the countries. Iceland is almost a world on its own, but had American Air Force personnel based there during the Second World War, had the "Cod Wars" some time ago and is now having to come to terms with immigrants.

The hero is Erlendur (first names are nearly always used as surnames tend to indicate only son of xxx). As is not unusual in these types of novels he has his problems in his personal life, starting with losing his brother in a snowstorm when a child and continuing with a marriage which went sour and difficult relationships with his two children as a result.

Bridge once more

Yesterday evening saw the end of a group of teaching sessions forming a bridge (pun intended) betwen the last Monday afternoons and the next ones which start on 22 September. My partner has calmed down enough to agree to return to next Monday's play and the man who has taken the recent Friday evenings is going to turn up too. He (B.) is totally relaxed and also a good teacher. I have a very high opinion of him.

"Our leader", S thinks she is a good teacher and is certainly enthusiastic about the game but is not, in fact a good teacher. I am sure she would be horrified to know that; she is so enthusiastic, but does not recognise that there is a limit to how much new information can be taken on board on one session.

Today has been a very lazy day, which I think was rather badly needed.

Another Book Review

Yesterday I finished a book called Deaf Sentence by David Lodge. It was recommended by Jobbing Doctor's Book Club. The leading character is a retired professor of linguistics who is going deaf (as is the author). Many parts of the book are very funny.

So much of the protagonist's difficulties caused a wry smile with me. I first found out I was losing my hearing when it was somewhat forcibly pointed out to me that I had been very rude; when I was chairing meetings I would often talk over people sitting to my left because I had no idea they were speaking.

I was very lucky in that one of the staff with whom I was working closely at that time was an ENT sister (we were working on a protocol for care of a patient with a tracheostomy in conjunction with the consultant anaesthetist and the consultant ENT surgeon.) This meant that I was very lucky to get a rapid appointment with the ENT surgeon, a speedy MRI scan to exclude a tumour and then a hearing assessment with an in ear hearing aid fitted in a remarkably short time. I was also lucky that I was hard of hearing on only my left ear, although now I need two hearing aids.

However I digress. The hero's difficulties arise from his attendance at a party where an attractive woman corners him and he can't hear a word of what she says so he nods and smiles at what he hopes are appropriate moments.

I shall not give away any more of the story, but I do recommend the book unreservedly.

Particularly if you are not hard of hearing. I know how irritating it can be for a hearing person to have to cope with a hard of hearing friend or family member.

It has been really good to have my mind channelled into reading new (to me) books and authors. It started with a. (a travelling spouse) who recommended Fred Vargas as a French author of romans policiers and proceeded with niceladydoctor who recommended The Spare Room. Any other recommendations warmly received.

Seamstress and Plumber

Yesterday I received a visit from daughter and M. Now M is a plumber so he came to sort out the problem of poor sealant in the shower uncovered by the spray mould killer. He did a wonderful job of stripping out the old sealant and putting on new. He also pointed out another error made by those cowboy plumbers who put my shower in, they had applied sealant to the bottom of the shower cabinet thus blocking the run off of any water; apparently you should only put sealant between the shower cabinet and the walls.

It looks so good now and I have of course had a great shower this morning.

Meanwhile daughter and I had a great blether over cups of tea and she even sewed on a button on my raincoat, making a much better job of it than I could.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear

I mentioned earlier that the lady who looks after the Monday afternoon group and takes a pride in being a good teacher got my partner totally stressed on Monday afternoon. She is a rather nervous person and we are trying to come together as a partnership so that we understand where we are coming from, so too much criticism of her play is not only unhelpful but actually counter-productive.

What happened yesterday? Well all the people who go to a Tuesday evening are totally relaxed and there to enjoy themselves (and win when possible of course), but yesterday evening was that we sat down at one of the tables and my partner's nemesis sat down with us. I could see that even that fact was stressing my partner and this was not helped by the fact that this lady laid in to her partner before the start, getting him to agree to play her way not his (and he is a good player). The last straw came when the lady tore in to my partner for making a bidding error when in fact she had not.

At the next two tables I could see that she was upset and crying a bit. When she was dummy at the third table she excused herself and went downstairs and metaphorically blew her nose and washed her face. She looked better when she returned and we played well after that.

But really what that lady did is quite appalling.

Now my partner will not come back on a Monday afternoon because of the stress.

The good news is that not only did we not come in bottom last week but fourth out of six. Not bad for newbies.

Physiotherapy and beyond

Serves me right for wearing my nice pale pink jersey to the physiotherapy exercise class this morning. Not long after I arrived I noticed two black marks on the front. At first I thought they were bits of fluff off my black fleece, but on further investigation, they were not. I then thought they must be Biro marks as we use black Biros to mark up our exercise charts. The physio came over and said she thought they looked more like chocolate! This was a puzzle as I rarely eat chocolate, but later I remembered taking the last biscuit from the barrel - an oat one with chocolate chips!

On my way home I made a quick visit to the garden centre and bought a cheese scone and a bottle of lemon refresher. I buttered the scone and took a mouthful when the fire alarm went off. Everybody out! I managed to wrap the scone in a napkin and grabbed my trolley and duly went out. It all turned out to be a false alarm.

When I got home I stripped off the pale pink jumper and changed into my usual black one. I then put the pink jumper and two others together with a pair of trousers and some underwear.

That's all done now apart from the jumpers which are drying flat on top of a towel on my bed.

I forgot to mention that I had forgotten to take my medications before I left for the class this morning. Lack of analgesia made it more difficult. I am also finding that, as requested, I increase the number of times I do each exercise, I am starting to run out of time before finishing.

Now for a rest and a read of The Times (I have cancelled The Scotsman as it has really gone downhill. I enjoy one columnist and am sorry not to read his articles, but I am not buying a paper just for that.

Bridge - and Scrabble

Today there were very few of us and so our leader got us to move round in turns. She then had a great time laying into everyone for their mistakes. She got my partner totally stressed out and another lady who is a good player replied when told the whole point of the game was to enjoy herself said "Well, I'm not enjoying it!" I must admit that, while I am happy to learn new things - and have even taken home a note of a very useful tip, I am totally relaxed about the whole thing and I do enjoy it. This is very much not to say that I don't try very hard to win.

I have a very competitive streak.

We went to look at the board for last Tuesday's scores, but they were not up, so we shall have to wait till tomorrow.

In the end we finished early and I arrived back at the ranch in time for a game of Scrabble - the first for a long time.

Church and worse

It is a lovely warm day here today, but nevertheless I put on my thermals to cope with the cold in the Church. Today was the third of our Statutory four Communion Services each year and , as usual, the Church was packed (with about 400 or so). The numbers present in themselves raise the temperature inside the building, so perhaps I did not need all the extra layers.

The reading was once more the parable of the talents. After confirming once again that in the parable the talents were money he expanded the lesson to mean the talents that we have all been given by God - and do we use these talents wisely? He asked if we thought our politicians used their talents wisely. That raised a laugh followed by a resounding no!

After the service I went once again to the big garden centre because I had spotted some things there the last time I visited - just silly nothings - which I wanted to buy before they disappeared. Our bridge club has a social and competition evening just before Christmas. They put on a good spread too.

I hope to win the competition for the best Christmas outfit. (Note that this does not require there to be any good taste involved.) I have the usual red tinsel to wear as a scarf, a flashing santa hat, a flashing handbag charm, and - the piece de resistance - a flashing biro for recording my score.

How about then, soup fans?

While there I had the usual cheese scone and lemon refresher for lunch then went to the big supermarket A***. I trailed around getting hotter, then by the time I was standing at the checkout I was feeling faint. I apologised and sat down for a bit, then had to speak to an assistant and apologise that I just had to abandon my shopping and go home. She was really nice. I went into one of the loos and removed two thermal layers and splashed my hands and face with cold water. After that I felt better and headed home but dropped in to the little A*** for one or two things that I really needed. Thank goodness for air conditioning in the car!

Bridge revisited.

Yesterday evening I went out to the bridge club again, this time for a teaching session. We are all at different stages of ability, but that can still work. Sometimes if you just keep quiet when the tutor is teaching one of the less able players you can learn something new or something that you had forgotten. It is also helping my partner and me to play as a better team.

Another late night, so I slept in this morning but still managed to get my towels all washed and dried before lunch.

It is another dull day, but not windy judging by the trees opposite.

It must be terrible for the people in the Gulf States with Hurricane Ike making landfall. I understand Galveston is now flooded. It would appear that some 20,000 people did not follow instructions to evacuate and move inland.

Banking

Yesterday my lovely cleaners came; the senior one just back from a week in Portugal (the Algarve). After, TBSITW called round for a chat clutching 2 bottles of the famous Noilly Prat and also the famous potted meat from the butcher in a near by village. Of course I had it for my evening meal served with potato, carrot, turnip and steamed tender stem broccoli and leek. It was delicious, quite peppery where it is often bland. You put the potted meat on top of the potato and it melts into it. Mmmmm.

Some time back I had to cancel a credit card as it was lost. I use Credit Card Protection, so I called the company and asked them to cancel the card and request a new one. It has been almost two weeks and the replacement has still not arrived so I called to discover that, yes, it had been cancelled and a new account number applied, but nobody had ordered a replacement card. It is now, supposedly, on its way.

I have two credit cards and manage them on line, so when I discovered that the last 5 or so purchases had not been posted I worried that the card protection people had cancelled both cards. This morning I called the bank and after I had gone through the "if you are calling about x, press button 1" etc, and gone through all the security questions, they had a look and were able to confirm that all the "missing" ones had gone through.

The nice man asked me if I were on line and I said that I was and I was on the recent transactions page. Before he could say another word, I noticed that at the foot of the page there was a next page button. Because I usually use both credit cards and one was unavailable I had rather more transactions than usual on this one and had neither needed nor noticed that option. (In fact, I don't think it appears unless there is something posted on the following page).

Ooooops! Another senior moment!

The Bridge Club

As I said, last night my partner and I went to the bridge club. She has long been a very nervous player and she was so scared about last night.

We decided to play East/West as North has quite a bit of extra work to do. So we arrived and saw two nice ladies sitting at one table and I asked if anyone were playing East/West there. No, so we sat down and they were so nice and friendly I could see my partner starting to relax. When play commenced, everything moves quite quickly, so there is no going over of hands afterwards and no recriminations. She found this much easier than Monday afternoons, where the slightest mistake is analysed.

So basically we enjoyed ourselves. My partner was getting rather tired by the end of the evening as the adrenaline rush subsided and I hope she got home safely - she does not live in this town, but in another, fairly close by.

Of course, I found it difficult to relax once I got home, but when I got to bed I slept like a log for about 10 hours!

Several people have asked me if I know a certain Dr Smith* who plays at the bridge club. There is another Dr smith* at the surgery I go to and when I first went I found that one had just retired and the other looked reasonably young, so I assumed they were father and son. I soon found out that they were unrelated. At one of the tables I could see the players names on their score card and lo and behold one of them was John* Smith* so I said that although we had never met I thought I knew who he was - I said "you are not James'* father". Of course he immediately knew what I meant. So that's that solved.

* obviously not their real names.

Physio-terrorists

This morning I have once again been to my exercise class and they are really putting me through my paces! I can feel almost every muscle crying out for a bit of gentle care and attention.

I decided to spoil myself and went straight away afterwards to the big garden centre for a cheese scone and lemon refresher.

I was disappointed but not surprised to see that quite a large part of the floor area has been set aside with stuff for Christmas. Mind you I can't really complain as I bought quite a lot in the January sale.

Yesterday evening I got a telephone call from my bridge partner and we are going to be big and brave and go to the bridge club tonight. This is excellent news.

Always providing I can stay awake, of course.....

Bridge and Book Revue

Today I went to the Bridge Club to discover to my delight and pride that my partner and I had come first last week, but later discovered it was 2 weeks ago. It is so exciting, particularly as there were quite a number of players on that occasion. Last week we came third out of 4, which is still better than our usual bottom.

I have just finished reading Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday.

This book is written in the form of emails, diary entries and responses at an inquiry.

It is gently humorous, but not in terms of The Number One Ladies Detective Agency, but more in terms of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.

I really enjoyed it it and I recommend it.

Sundays

Our Church is always cold, particularly in summer ironically enough, due to the height of the roof, and the size of the building. This morning I went prepared and wore my thermal vest and long johns as well as a cotton polo neck under my polo neck all topped off with a fleece. Did I mention that I took my woolly Iceland mitts?

It was a good service with both the minister and the associate minister in attendance. The minister always shakes hands inside the door while the associate minister stands outside. He is a good man and when he sees me struggling a bit to get through a rather awkward two steps up and two steps down exit he steps forward to assist me - much appreciated.

I was still cold when I got back to the car, but I set off with the heater on full blast to buy some more long life bulbs TBSITW changed the ones at the window end of my sitting room, but one is not going on - may just need another slight screw in. So I got one to replace that one if it proves necessary and three to put by for the (hopefully distant) future.

After that I went to the big garden centre and bought one or two things before returning home to have a lunch of a crisp white loaf bought there served with cheddar and tomatoes accompanied by a glass of Fursty Ferret ale, followed by a slice of an apple and bramble tart.

Now quite warm and going to relax for the rest of the day.

Happy Birthday to TBSITW!

Today is TBSITW's birthday, 21 again (and again..) She came over to pick me up to go for a brunch cooked by le chef.

Some brunch!

2 glasses of Tio Pepe (hence the lift).

Home made multigrain (and seeds) bread, topped by black pudding and a poached egg. To the side - two different kinds of sausages - venison and pork, bacon and tomato.

I should make it clear that the black pudding comes from the butcher to which TBSITW took me so that I would know how to find it. He makes his own black pudding and sausages and so on and all the meat is of really good quality.

TBSITW showed me a pot of potted meat, which is a favourite of mine. So of course I went away without it! Still I did take away some rowan jelly (home made) and a few plums.

It is now coming up to 6pm and not only am I not hungry, I am still "full to the brim".

It was a super do and just so good to see them and get such friendly greetings from the (getting older and bigger) puppy - I am covered in hairs, but that is fine: I deliberately did not change into good trousers!

By a strange coincidence TBSITW and le chef have been invited to a dinner party tonight and le chef is doing the driving - and excellent additional present.

Metro Hotel, Woking

This article with pictures is posted in dickiebo's blog. He has pictures, but I can't seem to manage to copy them over.

I feel the story deserves as wide an audience as possible, so I have copied the article here.

Corporal Tomos Stringer, aged 23, was injured in Afghanistan and sent home to recover. Whilst here, he decided to go to Woking to assist with the funeral of a colleague who was killed in action. He booked into the Metro Hotel, by telephone. On his arrival - in civilian clothes - he was asked to produce some means of identity. He produced his military ID Card. He was then told that the Metro Hotel policy was not to accept military personnel, and he was turned away! He ended up sleeping in his car - his arm in plaster.
The hotel is owned by American Amusements Ltd, in Woking. It’s director, Michael Appleton, lives nearby in a £2 million house, and declined to comment.

Cpl Stringer is now back in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, fighting for the likes of Appleton, the Metro Hotel employees who turned Cpl Stringer away, and US. He deserves better.
I urge all decent people to avoid going to The Hotel Metro, Woking.

I would be more than happy for anyone to copy this article into their blogs to spread it as widely as possible.

A Jaunt

It is a lovely day today and when my cleaners were leaving they asked me what I was going to do today. So I decided that I would order a taxi and went to M and S. I had lunch there and bought one or two things before returning home in a taxi. It is such a long time since I have been to the shopping centre because the whole town centre was a mess with the bus station being closed and bus stances moved to the High Street.

At any rate I enjoyed myself and have haddock and chips organised for my supper served with purple sprouting broccoli.

An Apology

Yesterday I posted a crit. about a book I am reading and it was rather unfavourable.

In my haste to add that post I gave no thought to the feelings of daughter who had loaned it to me when it was in a pristine, unread condition. Additionally, she was looking forward to reading the book and I have taken the edge off her anticipation.

This was unnecessarily rude and unthoughtful of me, and I owe her a huge apology.

So, here it is: a HUGE APOLOGY. And big hugs from a mother who is sadly much less than perfect.

Alarums and Excursions

The house manager came to see me this morning to say that I do not qualify for the County Falls Service pendant alarm as there are already so many pull cords, one in every room (and a push button one in the bathroom). We both agree that it is a pity when it is a better use of resources than having an ambulance and 2 trained staff (so far it has always been a paramedic and an ambulance technician), but we have done our collective best, so that is that.

I am arranging to return the pendant alarm that I have been wearing (well, sometimes - it is sitting beside the monitor just now, and if I turn round I can reach the pull cord). As I think I have said, it was a big disappointment that it did not go through to the same call centre as the pull cords - the people there are very familiar with the way things operate here.

Other than that I have been struggling with a book that my daughter loaned me. It is called The Puppet Master by Ian Gosling.

It is his first novel, and the biographical bit at the beginning does not say by what route he came to writing this. It reminds me of more than one television series, and indeed, could have been written with the idea of a television series as his aim.

Still, I don't like giving up so I shall struggle on.

Dentist (and Hygienist)

This afternoon by incredibly bad timing: after the exercises of the morning I had an appointment with the dentist followed by the hygienist.

The terrors of the hygienist treatments are offset only by the knowledge that at least I have some teeth to need them!

However, I have to go back for two more treatments which are going to require local anaesthetics.

Oh joy!

I had my teeth x-rayed today for the first time.

I was told that the treatments I was going to have would be more expensive than usual, and I enquired anxiously for a rough idea of the cost.

About £70.

This is less than the cost of going for one visit privately to my previous dentist and hygienist. Not only does the NHS one cost much less, but I reckon I get a better standard of care.

Today's visit to the dentist and hygienist was £5.40.

Physiotherapy

Do you remember that I had a home assessment visit from a community physiotherapist?

If not, pay more attention at the back!

When I got to my exercise class this morning, I was told that they had a whole lot of new exercises for me to help with my balance (and confidence) and to strengthen my legs.

You would have laughed to see me doing some of the exercises. Doing toe rises (repeated going on to tip toe) without holding on I kept losing my balance, but eventually managed a few.

Marching on the spot (with the physio standing behind me with her hands at my waist, but not holding), was not on the spot but a forward progression.

I am having to increase the stepper each week and the shuttle walk.

There was an odd one with a board which had strapped to it stretchy bands of different colours (and correspondingly differing flexibility). I had to hold one foot under the band and raise the toe off the ground. I found the easiest one too easy, and was about to say that the middle one was too easy, when I really started to feel it!

Now that I am home, I am feeling as though I have had a good work-out, which has to be excellent.

One of the physiotherapists has referred me to get a community alarm, so we shall see if a two pronged approach does any good.

Falls follow-up

After starting the process to obtain the fall pendant that puts you through to the County Falls Response Service, I have tried on the telephone to terminate the one I currently have. I had thought it connected to the same service as the pull cord system in the flats, but in fact, not only does it not do that but it goes somewhere in England. The holding company may be the same but the services are entirely separate.

I was greeted by the house manager this afternoon asking what I was trying to do. She now understands, but is rather doubtful that I would qualify for the C ounty pendant alarm as there are so many pull cords in the flat.

My argument is that with Careline (or the other pendant alarm that I currently have), if I fall the response is to send out an ambulance with a paramedic and an ambulance technician.

To my mind this is ridiculous and such a waste of resources. By dispatching an ambulance, they could put someone else's life at risk, when all I need is to be helped to my feet.

The house manager is going to take up my case and see what happens, but in the mean time I have told her I do not wish to continue with the pendant as I have always been able to make my way to a pull cord - and subsequently able to release the front door and open the flat door for them.

On a lighter note, this afternoon provided some really good hands, so we shall wait and see.